The Small and the Ordinary: The Daily Practice of a Postmodern Narrative Therapy
- 1 March 1998
- journal article
- case report
- Published by Wiley in Family Process
- Vol. 37 (1) , 3-15
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.1998.00003.x
Abstract
In this article, I contrast assumptions of a modernist worldview and a postmodern worldview as they relate to clinical practice. Two exercises are described that help therapists develop insight into and practice with the kind of thinking that is consistent with a postmodern narrative clinical practice. Particular attention is paid to the ways that even the small and the ordinary — single words, single gestures, minor asides, trivial actions — can provide opportunities for generating new meanings. Five concepts that I routinely use in my professional and personal life and that are consistent with a postmodern narrative practice — discourse, externalizing the internalized discourse, exceptions, power as the means to produce a consensus, and characteristics of narrative — are illustrated.Keywords
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